HMT Limited

Industrials — Farm & Heavy Construction Machinery · BSE

₹56.86+₹1.86 (+3.38%)

DalalBaazaar Score

19 / 100

🔴 Poor

Verdict

HIGH RISK

Risk

Very High

Driven by negative shareholders' equity — the company owes more than it owns, short-term liabilities exceed short-term assets, negative free cash flow.

In simple words: The company owes more than it owns — years of losses have wiped out its net worth, but sales are shrinking. Solvency — whether it can keep funding itself at all — is the main factor to watch.

Decision support, not a buy or sell call.

As of 18 Oct 2026, 6:59 pm

Understanding the Business

Company site ↗

The 60-second version of HMT Limited — what it does, how it earns, and who it competes with, before any of the numbers below.

What does this company do?

HMT Limited engages in the manufacture and sale of food processing machines in India and internationally.

IndustryFarm & Heavy Construction Machinery

SectorIndustrials

Employees618

Annual revenue₹143 Cr

How does it make money?

Turns over ₹143 Cr a year. Of every ₹100 of sales, about ₹-92 reaches shareholders as profit, with ₹-39 left at the operating level before interest, tax and depreciation. Each of its 618 employees supports ₹23.1 lakh of revenue a year, the signature of a people-led business.

Revenue / employee₹23.1 lakh

Who are its competitors?

The closest listed comparisons in its industry are MAHINDRA & MAHINDRA LTD, ASHOK LEYLAND LTD, TATA MOTORS LIMITED, LARSEN & TOUBRO LTD.. These are the companies its valuation and returns are measured against elsewhere in this report.

Compared side by side in Peers ↓

What has been driving growth?

Profit has moved mainly because margins changed, not because the business sold much more. Over 3 years revenue moved -30% while net margin moved +53% relative to itself. What this cannot tell you is which products, customers or geographies did the work — that lives in the segment disclosures of the annual report.

Revenue effect-30%

Margin effect+53%

DalalBaazaar Score

19/ 100

Poor

Weighted across six categories. Every point is explained below.

✗ Shareholders' equity is negative — accumulated losses exceed the capital in the business

Quality vs. Valuation

Company Quality

18/ 100

Weak

How good the business is, ignoring the share price entirely.

Valuation

30/ 100

Expensive

What you are being asked to pay, ignoring how good the business is.

Weak on business quality and not cheap enough to compensate.

vs. its own history

Not enough price and earnings history

vs. sector peers

Not enough peers with a usable P/E

vs. generic bands

N/A

Multiples unreliable — equity base is negative

EV/EBITDA

—

PEG

—

What's Good / What's Bad

🟢 What's Going Well1

Debt is being paid down
Total debt is down 72% over 3 years.

🔴 What Needs Attention0

Nothing stands out as clearly deteriorating on the years of data available.

Red Flags

6 items require attention · 4 high · 2 watch

🔴Negative shareholders' equityFinancial
Liabilities exceed assets — accumulated losses have wiped out the company's net worth.
🔴Thin interest coverageFinancial
Operating profit covers interest only -0.9x — little room if earnings dip.
🔴The company is lossmakingFinancial
Net profit of -₹132 Cr in the latest reported year.
🔴Significant margin compressionFinancial
EBITDA margin has fallen 19.2 points, from -19.7% to -38.8%.
🟡Interest coverage is deterioratingFinancial
Cover has fallen from -1.0x to -0.9x.
🟡Short-term liquidity is tightFinancial
Current ratio of 0.20 — near-term obligations exceed near-term assets.

Investment Thesis

🟢 Bull CaseWhat could make this work?

Deleveraging frees up earnings
Debt is down 72% over 3 years. Every rupee of interest not paid drops to the bottom line, so profit can grow even if revenue does not.

🔴 Bear CaseWhat could go wrong?

Solvency comes before everything else
Liabilities exceed assets. Until net worth is rebuilt, the equity is a claim on a business that owes more than it owns, and further losses or a funding squeeze can leave shareholders with nothing.
Margins are being competed away
EBITDA margin has fallen from -19.7% to -38.8%. If the trend continues, profit falls even on flat sales — and margin decline rarely reverses quickly.
Earnings are hard to forecast
Profit has swung sharply from year to year, so any single year — good or bad — is a weak guide to the next. Cyclical earnings deserve lower multiples for that reason.
Size brings its own risk
Small Cap businesses are thinly traded, so exits are harder in a falling market and single events move the price more than they would for a larger company.
Several serious flags at once
4 high-severity checks triggered. Individually each has an explanation; together they raise the chance that something structural is wrong rather than a one-off.

🟡 Key Things to WatchMeasurable tripwires, set against where this company stands today

1EBITDA margin holds above -41%✓ -38.8%
Two points below today's level — enough room for noise, tight enough to catch real compression.
2Interest cover stays above 3x✗ -0.9x
How much operating profit can fall before interest stops being comfortably covered.
3Free cash flow remains positive✓ ₹43 Cr
Profit that never becomes cash eventually stops being profit.

Investment Checklist

3 / 8 checks passed

✗ Shareholders' equity is positive (assets exceed liabilities)
✗ Healthy net margin (≥ 10%)
✗ Generates positive free cash flow
✗ Adequate short-term liquidity (Current Ratio ≥ 1.0)
✗ Revenue growing year-over-year
✓ Profit growing year-over-year
✓ Not trading at an extreme valuation (P/E < 40x)
✓ Not buying right at the 52-week high

Price history

Quick Metrics

0 good · 5 neutral · 6 weak

Market Cap

₹6,846 Cr

Small Cap

Smaller company — thin liquidity and deep drawdowns are normal here

P/E (Trailing)

Not meaningful

Loss-making

Earnings are negative, so a P/E multiple can't be read here

P/B Ratio

Not available

No data

Source didn't return this field

EPS (TTM)

₹-4.32

Loss-making

Negative earnings per share — the business is losing money

ROE

Not meaningful

Negative equity

Return on equity can't be read when equity itself is negative

ROCE

Not available

No data

Source didn't return this field

Debt/Equity

Not meaningful

Negative equity

Shareholders' equity is negative, so this ratio can't be read

Revenue Growth (YoY)

-37.9%

Shrinking

Sales are contracting

Profit Growth (YoY)

8.0%

Modest

Slow profit growth

Dividend Yield

None

No dividend yield reported — usually means no payout, but verify if one was recently initiated

Free Cash Flow

-₹41 Cr

Cash burning

Spending more cash than the operations bring in

More Metrics

ROA

-11.9%

Weak

Assets generate little profit

Operating Margin

-89.6%

Weak

Thin margins leave little room for error

Net Margin

-128.9%

Weak

Very little revenue reaches the bottom line

Current Ratio

0.20

Tight

Tight short-term liquidity

Beta (vs Nifty)

-0.24

Defensive

Steadier than the market

52W Range Position

46%

Mid-range

Financial Trend (4-Year)

Metric	FY23	FY24	FY25	FY26	3Y CAGR
Revenue	₹204 Cr	₹163 Cr	₹142 Cr	₹143 Cr	-11.2%
EBITDA	-₹40 Cr	-₹57 Cr	-₹63 Cr	-₹55 Cr	—
EBITDA Margin	-19.7%	-34.7%	-44.1%	-38.8%	—
PAT (Net Profit)	-₹123 Cr	₹2,551 Cr	-₹143 Cr	-₹132 Cr	—
Total Debt	₹3,727 Cr	₹1,029 Cr	₹1,029 Cr	₹1,033 Cr	-34.8%
Free Cash Flow	₹97 Cr	-₹851 Cr	-₹49 Cr	₹43 Cr	-23.5%

🔴 Revenue has shrunk at 11.2% a year over 3 years.

🔴 EBITDA Margin has fallen from -19.7% to -38.8% over 3 years (-19.2 pts).

🟢 Total Debt has shrunk at 34.8% a year over 3 years.

🔴 Free Cash Flow has shrunk at 23.5% a year over 3 years.

Balance Sheet & Cash Flow — FY2026

Total Assets

₹536 Cr

Total Liabilities

₹2,562 Cr

Cash & Equivalents

₹46 Cr

Operating Cash Flow

₹44 Cr

Capex

-₹1 Cr

Shareholding (proxy)

Institutional Holding

0.0%

Insider Holding

99.3%

Peer Comparison

Company	P/E	ROE
MAHINDRA & MAHINDRA LTD	17.8x	19.7%
ASHOK LEYLAND LTD	25.2x	24.4%
TATA MOTORS LIMITED	37.1x	32.8%
LARSEN & TOUBRO LTD.	30.1x	15.2%

Recent News

6 general

HMT (HMT) Share/Stock Price Live, NSE

TechGraph, 09 Oct

HMT Ltd. Lower Circuit Today: Price, Data and Peers

Univest, 28 Sept

HMT watches clock ₹35 lakh sale in one day: How Jawaharlal Nehru's 1953 PSU became India's 'Timekeepers to

The Economic Times, 20 Aug

HMT Ltd to appoint N. Ramesh Kumar as C&MD at 73rd AGM

scanx.trade, 30 Sept

HMT Share Price Forecast: 3 Year Outlook to 2030

Univest, 17 Jul

HMT revival plan likely to focus on self-reliance in new-age manufacturing for ISRO

The Economic Times, 17 Jun

Watch Items

Revenue growth is negative (-37.9%) on the latest reported period — check if this is one-off or a trend.
Cross-check against the company's latest quarterly filing / investor presentation before acting.
2 metrics couldn't be retrieved for this stock — this is more common for smaller or thinly-covered listings.

DalalBaazaar Thesis

WeakBusiness Quality · Financial Health · Growth · Profitability · Valuation · Risk

Points for each in the Score ↑

Avoid until solvency is resolved

HMT Limited owes more than it owns. Whatever the operating numbers show, the equity is a residual claim on a business with negative net worth, and that question has to be settled before any of the rest is worth weighing. 4 high-severity red flags sit above this conclusion and should be read first.

1 of 3 tripwires tripped — Interest cover stays above 3x · see Key things to watch ↑